Inclusive Learning and Educational Equity 5

Picture 10.2 Instruction 
for flexible grouping 
during math and reading 
lessons for the blue, green 
and red groups, 
co-teachers’ class
10 Teaching for Diversity with UDL: Analysing Teacher Competence

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The pupils are divided into heterogeneous small groups (first- and third-graders). One of 
the teachers explains and shows how to work with the day’s topic. The pupils can search 
information on an iPad (animal document films) or in a book. The younger ones or the 
children who cannot read can listen when the pupils who are literate read aloud. They can 
make notes, sculpt playdough or draw (the Lappish animal they are studying).
(Observation, 
co-teachers’ class and first graders, 8 Nov 2019)
During the second UDL period, the teachers continued to reflect on their teaching 
and the pupils’ learning. In spite of some groups needing strong guidance, the adults 
tried to give space for their pupils’ autonomous choices. The pupils were creating 
animal tales in the same kind of mixed-aged small groups as before.
The small group of Miia, Jussi, Irma and Matias needed much guidance on how to study 
together. Even coming up with the mutual topic for today’s task (the task was to come up 
with a mutual tale) was difficult. Strong guidance by an adult was needed. Some of the 
children will need lots of guidance for learning to collaborate. – As in teacher’s role, I felt 
it challenging not to guide the children much in direction of my vision but tried to let the 
children’s views show.
(Co-teacher’s and first grade teacher’s notes, 22 Nov 2019)
After the pupils had invented a topic for the tale, they were introduced to the 
concept of the mind map. With the help of the mind map, they created the plot of the 
tale (see Fig. 
10.5
).
Figure 
10.5
shows that the teachers highlighted patterns and critical features 
when the pupils were composing the tales. The mind map helped them to learn the 
anchor concepts and basic structure of a tale. The pupils of the group could partici-
pate in the story telling from their own starting points, some verbally, some by draw-
ing and some by writing (Co-teacher’s and first grade teacher’s notes, 22 Nov 2019).
We examined the pupils’ experiences of the representation of learning contents 
in the co-teachers’ class through the ‘I as a schoolchild’ survey (Aro et al., 
2014
) 
twice. The pupils were asked if there are enjoyable tasks at school; whether they do 
the difficult tasks, too and whether they finish the tasks. The pupils (year 2018 – 
N
= 15, year 2019 – N = 14) answered the statements by assessing them on a Likert 
scale. The results are shown in Fig. 
10.6
.
Picture 10.3 The options for the learning tasks for the lesson, pictorial instruction and co- 
teachers’ class
S. Lakkala and O. Kyrö-Ämmälä

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